time after time
A ripping yarn
UK Broadcast Highly unlikely... US Broadcast ABC, cancelled Episodes Reviewed 1.01–1.05
A Victorian gent stumbles out of a time machine in a museum exhibit.
JANE WALKER WTF!? Who are you?!
hG WELLS HG Wells! I’m chasing Jack the Ripper, who escaped in my time machine.
JANE WALKER But how could you land it in the same spot where it was on display in the future?
hG WELLS Er... may I say I find you quite charming?
JANE WALKER And I’m a sucker for Hugh Grant movies.
They kiss. Sparks erupt from the time machine.
PASSER-BY Good grief.
in a bar Jack chats up a woman.
ThE RIPPER …So, okay, yes, mass murderer. I have lots of expensive suits and look like a model.
WOMAN Let’s have sex.
Seeing HG enter, he puts a knife to the woman’s throat.
ThE RIPPER Give me the key that prevents the time machine twanging back on a long piece of elastic, or she dies!
JANE WALKER But why do you want it? There are plenty of women to kill in 2017.
ThE RIPPER Er... I just do, alright?!
He tosses her to the floor and escapes. A car pulls up outside and a well-dressed woman gets out.
VANESSA ANDERS Hello, HG! I’m your great-greatgrandaughter.
hG WELLS But we’ve never met!
VANESSA ANDERS How the hell do you
understand the basics of time travel?
Jack wakes in a lab. With his shirt off. A scientist is taking a sample of blood.
BROOKE MONROE Hi, I’m a sexy yet ruthless scientist and you’re somehow vital to my plans. Don’t sweat the details – we’ll never make the full eight episodes.
ThE RIPPER You know about me?
BROOKE MONROE Sure. So does my brother. Who’s going out with Vanessa. By the way, you had an illegitimate son who died in World War I. Just thought I’d say.
Jack stabs a guard with a syringe and escapes. Cut to a bar, Paris, 1918. Jack is talking to a young man in uniform. ThE RIPPER ...So don’t get on that truck – it’s going to be bombed! See: I’m just misunderstood, really.
RIPPER’S SON This is kinda tasteless.
HG and Jane arrive in the time machine.
JANE WALKER Hang on, this thing travels in space too?!
ThE RIPPER You’ll never defeat me, HG! No one’s more ruthless!
A studio exec walks in with a large axe and slaughters the entire cast.
STUDIO EXEC Beg to differ... Ian Berriman